


Mama knows best

by shetlandowl



Series: Mother knows best [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Elementary School, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Fluff and Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-05-29 07:41:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15068384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shetlandowl/pseuds/shetlandowl
Summary: “Son, when are you bringing that man of yours over for dinner?”Steve frowned into his chocolate milk and narrowed his eyes at his own reflection in the kitchen window. “Not until you tell me why you want to see him so badly,” Steve replied coolly. “You’ve already met him, haven’t you? You and Aunt Jackie both met him months ago.”“I met him as Tony Stark, single museum curator with a heart of gold! I want to meet Tony Stark, my son’s steady boyfriend.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [isle_girl808](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isle_girl808/gifts).



> This is a sequel to [Mama wants grandbabies, stat.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11788299), as requested by my dear [islegirl_808](http://islegirl808.tumblr.com)! I'm not sure it's absolutely necessary to read it first, but I highly recommend it.

“You’re eating a _salad?_ ”

Steve jumped at his desk and looked up from his computer, wide-eyed, until he realized the unexpected interruption was Tony. Tony, who was standing in the open doorway of his classroom in a leather jacket and windswept hair. He wore the same sky blue tie he wore last time he visited them, the one decorated with countless colorful cartoon dinosaurs that the kids had saved up to buy for him as a class present after the best field trip ever. 

From somewhere deep in his heart, deep in his bones, Steve could feel himself growing warm with the thrill of seeing Tony when he least expected it. “Sweetheart—Tony, what are you doing here?” he asked with a broad smile that he just couldn’t suppress. 

Tony pulled the door closed behind him, giving them some privacy while the kids were still out for recess. “I thought you might ask that,” he confessed, sauntering to Steve’s desk with a self-satisfied smirk. “And I thought of three reasonable explanations on the way here. Would you like to hear them?”

“I know that look, Tony,” Steve warned him, biting his lip in an effort not to outright grin about it. “The kids’ll be back any minute—”

Tony pressed a hand over his heart in a caricature of scandalized virtue. “What look! I don’t have a look.”

“The look that always gets you—”

“Us.”

“—into trouble, and how dare you bring that look _here_ , this is a classroom, with a shockingly sturdy desk—”

Tony’s charade dissolved in a delighted fit of laughter, and he made short work of the distance between them to loom over Steve in his chair and kiss him quiet. Steve grabbed Tony by his tie and tugged him closer, until Tony was dragged right into Steve’s lap and turned prisoner in the circle of his strong arms. 

“Mine,” Steve murmured against Tony’s lips as they eventually slipped apart. Tony hummed softly in reply, chasing Steve’s lips with one more quick, but eager, kiss. 

“Guess that means I’m down to only two reasonable explanations now,” Tony confessed, laughter still bright in his eyes. 

“Start with the more outrageous one,” Steve suggested, gently squeezing Tony in his embrace. 

“I thought I heard your voice,” Tony said as if recalling some wistful dream with an exaggerated air of nostalgia. “I couldn’t hear what you were saying, but I could tell that you missed me. So, naturally, I took the day, hopped in my car, and drove all the way to Brooklyn to surprise you and the kids.” 

Steve scrunched up his nose, clearly unimpressed. “No,” he decided. “That’s kind of outrageous, but no, Tony. I know you. You can do better than that.”

“Alright, you got me. The truth is, your mom called today. She demanded that I find you, seduce you… she needs you to put a damn baby in me, stat.”

Steve was still laughing too hard to breathe when an excited group of ten-year-olds ran into the classroom and loudly cheered, “Mr. Tony!”

Tony stood up as if it had been his plan all along, and he came around the desk to kneel and hug the children that rushed up to see him. 

“Hi everybody,” he said with a big smile. “Harvey, looking sharp, I like those shoes; Yuan, I’m loving those bangs on you, you look spectacular! Arlene,” he added, when the little girl shuffled to him in a hurry, shy but eager to hug him. He smiled and gently patted her back. “Always a pleasure. How’s your mother’s practice?”

“Great!” she said with a toothy smile, “because people are stupid and think that pulling out is as safe as pro-fil-acts.”

“Prophylactics,” Tony corrected mildly and with a straight face, reacting only by nodding in encouragement. “Your mother is a very intelligent woman, and so are you. Keep it up.” 

“Thank you, Mr. Tony,” she said, and her smile, impossibly, grew bigger. 

Steve walked away from his desk and his unfinished salad to help get the kids back on track. “Alright, everyone, yes, we have a surprise visitor. I know it’s exciting, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to get back to our multiplication tables again.”

The kids collectively moaned and pouted about going back to their lessons when Tony was there to visit, but out of the vague sounds of complaint, one voice piped up to ask, 

“Mr. Tony, are you coming with us to the zoo?”

Tony smiled at Harvey with genuine surprise. “I don’t know, nobody’s asked me if—”

He hadn’t finished his question before the whole class roared with shrill excitement, demanding and begging in turn that he join them at the zoo the following week. 

“Hey! Hey, everyone: use your indoor voices, please,” Steve called over the ruckus, just barely managing to lower their collective volume by an increment or two. It wasn’t until Tony had stopped laughing and spoke up that the mass of children clinging to his legs finally quieted to hear his answer. 

“Could I ever say no to you?” he asked them through his laughter, “but, you know, it would help if I knew when you were going, and where—”

“Next Tuesday!” a little girl shouted, her excitement so infectious Tony started laughing again. “We’re going to the Bronx Zoo next Tuesday.”

“Thank you, Flora,” he said sincerely. “Let me talk to Mr. Rogers, and we’ll see if it’s possible, alright?”

The full force of the children’s pleading little puppy-dog faces turned on Steve, and he almost crumbled right then and there like a complete amateur. 

“If you show Mr. Tony how good you can be today, and how well you have learned your multiplications tables,” Steve said in a steady, patient voice, “I will talk to the principal and see if we can’t make room for Mr. Tony on the trip next week.” 

As one, the pint-sized stampede took off, each pair of little feet running to their designated seats. With minimal groaning and complaining, the students dug out their workbooks and their pencils, eager to show just how well-behaved they could all be. 

Steve couldn’t believe his eyes. “You should visit more often,” he said to Tony under his breath. “This is a miracle.”

“I can watch them, you know,” Tony replied just as quietly. “Your salad’s getting cold.”

“Ha ha,” Steve muttered dryly. “Joke all you like, but you wish your lunch was that tasty.”

“Then why don’t you go eat your tasty lunch, and I’ll help the kids if they have any questions. And Friday night, I’ll toss your salad and we’ll see how good it really can be,” Tony murmured quietly and so matter-of-factly that Steve nearly choked on air. 

*** 

Later that night, Steve had only just kicked off his running shoes and made his way into the kitchen for a snack when his phone rang. 

“Son, when are you bringing that man of yours over for dinner?” 

Steve frowned into his chocolate milk and narrowed his eyes at his own reflection in the kitchen window. “Not until you tell me why you want to see him so badly,” Steve replied coolly. “You’ve already met him, haven’t you? You and Aunt Jackie both met him months ago.”

“I met him as Tony Stark, single museum curator with a heart of gold! I want to meet Tony Stark, my son’s steady boyfriend.”

In the safety of his own home, Steve dared to roll his eyes. “Mom, we had a pretty crazy start. When things have calmed down, when we know where we stand, I’ll bring him for dinner.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line before she spoke again. “Son, I know that sounds reasonable,” she confessed in a suspiciously gentle tone. “But some things we need to know early on—” 

“What do you mean, ‘we’?” Steve blurted out, but his input was either ignored or unheard.

“I mean, how does he feel about children, and how many will he want to have? How did his parents raise him? Are they in the picture, would he expect you to move if you have a family?” 

“Mom, I’m pretty sure that won’t—” Steve tried to explain, but again his response was ignored. While she continued her stream of questioning, Steve sat down at his kitchen table with a quiet sigh, resigned to the realization that this was a monologue and not a conversation. He set the phone down on the table on speakerphone, and just tried to enjoy his drink. 

“—and does he have the kind of job that allows for a family? Or does he expect that you’ll drop everything if the kids need you? What if there’s an issue with religion? What if he believes in spanking, or corporal punishment?”

Steve perked up at the question, grinning wickedly at the thought. “Oh, I sure hope so, that would be so hot—” 

“Does he lean toward private or public schooling? Would he consider starting a college fund—”

“Aaaand let me stop you right there,” Steve finally said loudly enough to block out the sound of his mother’s voice. It was all fun and games until money came into the picture. “Mom! Mom, can’t you hear yourself? These are not appropriate questions for a new relationship.”

“Steven Grant Rogers. Is that how you speak to your own mother?” she complained before Steve managed to hang up, and really, he should have just done it anyway. He should hang up on her right now, before she started her trademark guilt trip—or worse: before she started to cry. 

Before she _won_. 

“After we lost your father, God rest his soul, I had to work two nursing jobs to put food on the table, and to get you through college. To bring you up to the man you are today. You’re my son, my only child. I want you to be happy; I want you to have a family! Can you blame me for wanting to be introduced to a man who is so dear to you?”

It was a trap. Steve knew it was a trap; he was intimately familiar with these traps. 

He always fell for them.

“No, mom, of course not,” Steve eventually said with a tired sigh. “Just, no money talk, and—please, mom. No questions about family planning. We’ve only been dating four months. But I’ll talk to Tony tomorrow, okay? We’ll see if we can’t find time for dinner sometime soon.” 

“Sure, honey, I’ll try to remember that,” she said with her usual cheer, and none of the touching heartache she’d spouted seconds ago. “You just make sure you’re both here for dinner next Thursday at 5:30pm. He doesn’t have to bring a side-dish, but remind him that mama prefer reds to whites.”

*** 

“Natasha can smell presents, Steve, you’ve got to help me.”

Steve still had his phone pinched between his shoulder and his ear when he gestured for his best friend to come in out of the rain. “Hang on, my friend’s here at ten o’clock at night for no good reason,” Steve told Tony before taking the phone in hand and turning his attention to Bucky and his three bulging black and white shopping bags. “What’s this, Bucky? Did you rob Sephora?”

“First of all, _they_ robbed _me_ ,” Bucky glowered. “36 dollars for fucking nail polish? What the actual fuck?”

Steve stared at his friend for a long moment, then calmly raised the phone to his ear again. “I take that back, sweetheart, it looks like Bucky’s having a meltdown. I’ll call you back.”

“Or you could put the phone down on speakerphone and let me eavesdrop,” Tony suggested in a conspiratorial whisper, making no effort to hide how amused he was. Steve snorted quietly and rolled his eyes to himself, but said nothing. Instead, he thumbed speakerphone on and put the phone down on the island counter to help Bucky unload his loot on the table. 

“People go through the roof when gas prices get close to three dollars per gallon, meanwhile, this shit is—is, what, 90—no, 88 dollars per gallon! Who does that!”

Steve frowned down at the small bundle of Tom Ford nail polish bottles. “So why did you buy sixteen of them?”

“Well,” Bucky said quietly after a beat, “it’s. I mean, it’s for a surprise birthday present, you know? I didn’t know which one she’d like, just that she likes Tom Ford, so I had no choice, Steve. I bought them all.”

“Natasha?” Steve said, dumbfounded. “Red and black. Those are her colors, red and black. Why did—what’s this, African Violet? What’s she going to do with purple?”

“First of all, that’s _violet_ , not purple,” Bucky corrected, and he quickly reclaimed the once-offending nail polishes as if they need rescuing from Steve’s judgmental reach. “And… alright, sometimes, she likes to get creative with her toes, okay? Like, wearing unicorn print underwear, or Power Puff Girls socks. But you didn’t hear it from me.”

“Natasha wears unicorn print underwear—oh, shit,” Steve mumbled in surprise, digging through a bag until he got to a little cardboard box that smelled incredible. He pressed it to his nose and inhaled deeply. “Shit, this is good. What is it?”

“Right?” Bucky agreed, then added a deadpan, “that’s the smell of 65 dollars.”

“Bullshit. For a candle?”

“I wish,” Bucky grumbled, but he still reached and took it out of Steve’s hands just like he had with the nail polish. “It’s her birthday, and she likes bubble baths with candles, which is fine, whatever. Once a fucking year. So, is it cool if I hide these with you for two weeks?”

“Yeah, sure. You need any wrapping paper?” Steve agreed easily, and when Bucky nodded, he walked out to his little laundry room where he kept all the odds and ends that were important but didn’t belong anywhere else. He brought out a handful of colorful rolls and bows, scissors and tape, and helped Bucky set up in the living room. 

“You’re helping me do this, right?” Bucky called as Steve turned to leave the living room, not asking for his help as much as he was asking for support in this vulnerable moment of realizing how expensive it was to be a woman.

“Yeah, just—” Steve held up his phone again, “Tony, laundry; I’ll be right there.”

“Girlfriend?” Tony asked when Steve picked up the phone again. 

“Wife. He goes a little overboard sometimes. He’s a great guy, he just… all or nothing, you know?” Steve answered quietly, closing the door to the laundry room behind him so they could have some privacy. “Anyway, where were we?”

“Something about dinner with your mom?”

“Which is not an obligation, Tony, despite what she likes to think,” Steve reminded him (and himself) while he busied himself pulling the freshly dried laundry out of the dryer. “She invited you to dinner this Thursday at 5:30pm. How would that work for you?”

“You’ll be there, too, won’t you?” Tony asked with a smile in his voice, and a moment later he asked, “I’m guessing she lives out in Brooklyn? That might be too tight for me.”

Steve had barely had a chance to agree when Bucky suddenly hollered from the living room. 

“Steve! What the hell, man, get out here!” Bucky called out in complaint. “How do you even do this?”

“Patiently!” Steve called back over his shoulder. “What grown man can’t wrap a birthday present?” he muttered to Tony, who snickered quietly in his amusement. “Anyway, sweetheart, just—if it’s not a good time, we can reschedule. Or, you really don’t have to do this. Not the field trip, not the mother.”

“I know, babe. I want to,” Tony assured him with an easy smile in his voice, and Steve pressed his face into a warm towel so Tony wouldn’t possibly hear his blush. “My schedule is flexible on Tuesday, the zoo trip is no problem. But, for Thursday,” he continued, a little less enthusiastic, “could we maybe do it on the weekend? I have a big meeting Friday morning.”

“Mom’s got brunch with her work friends on Saturdays,” Steve replied thoughtfully, “but I’ll ask about Sunday.”

“I have to be in Harlem Sunday afternoon,” Tony told him, “and if she isn’t available Sunday morning, why don’t you let me take you to brunch?”

Steve pouted down at the clean load of laundry he’d just thrown into the dryer, as if it would somehow yield answers to life’s craziest riddles. What level of Hell did sons who wished their mothers butted out of their lives end up in, for example? 

“Then I hope she’s busy,” he mumbled mutinously, toeing the line between resignation and petulance. “If you only knew how nosey she can be—”

“You mean, like staking out a museum for eight days looking for a leggy brunet with a, and I quote, ‘plump ass’?”

Tony glittering peel of laughter drowned out Steve’s low, embarrassed whine. “I’m hanging up on you right now!” Steve cried in a half-hearted threat. “School is _cancelled_ , tell the principal I’ll be hiding under my couch for the rest of the year—”

“Steve!” Tony wheezed down the line. 

“Nope, no: it’s too late to ask forgiveness, you have officially mortified me beyond repair.”

“Oh, I’m not asking for forgiveness,” Tony answered with a soft giggle in his voice, “but do you really think you can fit under the couch with those pecs?”

Steve growled softly into the phone. “Flattery will get you nowhere, Stark.”

Tony’s laughter quieted with a softly inhaled gasp. “Tomorrow,” he murmured, his voice suddenly deep with interest, “we will finish this when I see you, and that noise you just made, tomorrow.”

***

Tony was at Steve’s doorstep an hour after work that Friday. They had had many dates out in restaurants and museums and late-night shows, but in the last few weeks, their dates had been less about going out for an event, and more about each other. 

Sometimes they met up at Tony’s place, a one-bedroom in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It was smaller and noisier than Steve’s place, but Steve secretly coveted those mornings when he would wake up in Tony’s bed, surrounded by the spicy, clean scent that was so quintessentially Tony. He never felt as lazy or as spoiled as he did those mornings, watching Tony puttering around his kitchen in the nude through the French doors. 

More often than not, they were at Steve’s place. Steve lived in a two-bedroom out in Bushwick, eight stops down from Tony’s apartment on the J line. With the two-bedroom came a bay window, a real kitchen, and a living room. There was enough counter space for them to cook together, a coffee table virtually made for puzzles and board games, and cable TV, so they could both watch the Knicks lose from the comfort of Steve’s very big, and very comfortable, couch. 

It was pouring rain outside, and it took Steve all of two seconds of staring at his drenched boyfriend to hustle him into the apartment. 

“Don’t you own an umbrella?” he complained while taking the take-out bags out of Tony’s hands, and before Tony knew what had happened, he’d been divested of his jacket, his scarf, and his sweater that was sopping wet at the sleeves. 

“Why’d you stop there?” he wondered when Steve let him keep his t-shirt on. He kicked off his boots and trailed Steve into the kitchen, where he accepted the cup of hot tea Steve pressed into his hand without question. 

Steve chuckled quietly despite his attempt to look upset by Tony’s nonchalant march through a downpour. “Warm up first,” he tried to say without returning Tony’s smile, “and maybe later you’ll get lucky.”

Tony sipped his tea with a quiet hum. He could agree to those terms …for all of five seconds. 

“It’s been a long week,” he whispered, weaseling his way into Steve’s personal space to slip his long, mischievous fingers under Steve’s soft flannel. Steve’s response was immediate. The sensation of Tony’s calloused fingertips drawing absent patterns over his skin teased a full body shudder from him, and he leaned in close, his dark eyes intent on Tony’s lips. 

“Warm me up in your bed,” Tony whispered, reaching to brush the pad of his thumb over Steve’s full bottom lip. “I’ve been waiting all week, Steve. It’s baby-making time, are you really going to make me wait any longer?”

From somewhere deep in his mortified soul, Steve whined, loud and plaintive, and face-planted in the crook of Tony’s neck, seeking comfort in his warmth. Privately, he indulged in the buoyant affection in Tony’s laugh, and the way Tony wound both arms around Steve’s neck and held him close. 

There, in Tony’s protective embrace, Steve dared to voice his fears. “I’m never leaving you and my mom alone together, _ever_.”

*** 

That following Tuesday, Tony was the first to arrive at the Bronx Zoo. Between Steve, his student teachers, Tony, and parent volunteers, the kids were separated into six groups for the excursion. 

Peter and MJ took off with their groups in the same direction, and Steve had no doubt they would be sticking together the whole time. A part of him wanted to do the same with Tony; the kids were going to spend most of their time staring into animal enclosures and scribbling in sketchbooks, why shouldn’t he have someone to talk to today, too? Would it be worth the obvious bias with respect to the other volunteering adults? 

Before he could think of a diplomatic way to raise the suggestion, however, Tony’s little group was already swarming him with questions. 

“Mr. Tony, Mr. Tony, do they have dinosaurs here?” 

“Mr. Tony! Please can we go see the tigers?” 

Steve watched as Tony only responded to the children’s overexcitement with a warm, patient smile and thoughtful replies while he led them away in the direction of the park map. He gave them his full attention, spoke calmly and addressed every kid in turn, making it clear that he had heard every one of their little voices. 

There was no way Steve would be able to merge his group with Tony’s. The way Tony interacted with his students was already making Steve hot under the collar, and distantly he could feel an abstract realization cementing into something very real and tangible. 

This man would make a good father. This man could be it for Steve. 

Watching Tony interacting with the children made Steve’s heart skip a beat, and he didn’t want it to end. Maybe Steve should practice self-restraint and suggest they merge their groups so that he could ask Tony if he ever considered becoming a parent. After all, just because he was good with kids didn’t mean he wanted to be a dad. 

Oh, god, no. What were these thoughts? What was happening? 

Steve was becoming his mother. 

“We’ll see you back here at three, Mr. Rogers,” he heard Tony call his way, before Steve could make his mind up about combining groups or not. “My phone is on if anything changes.” 

“You got it,” he replied with a smile and a wave to his students, as if he wasn't experiencing massively contradictory epiphanies at the same time. 

Steve wanted Tony in a way he had never imagined wanting someone else. He felt like he could fly. He was in love, he was so happy in love, but dear god. His mother had been right. 

Damn it all. He would never live this down.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony took his group in a less-than-linear tour of the zoo. Instead of trying to collect an animal for every letter of the alphabet, or draw an animal at every enclosure, he encouraged the kids to think about why the animals looked so different. They didn’t need to draw the whole animal, but he asked them to try to capture what seemed to be the most unique aspect of every animal, what feature they had developed in order to survive. 

He wanted them to think about the animals as part of their environment, and how the two might have changed over time. He wanted them to think about evolution. 

“Hey, kids, you see the color of the giraffe’s tongue?” Tony asked, and the two kids who’d been momentarily distracted by ostriches quickly hurried back to gawk and giggle with the rest of his group. “Why do you think that is?”

“They eat blueberries!” Sumeet guessed immediately, and Tony clapped him on the shoulder in praise. 

“That’s a great guess, Sumeet! That’s maybe why _you_ might have a blue tongue, but theirs has evolved to be purple. Evolution happens over many, many generations because it helps them live better in their environment. So our job is to think about how blue tongues could be helpful to giraffes. Where should we start?” he wondered, crouching down to help them conspire. “What do we know about giraffes?”

“They live in Africa,” Flora announced, eager to show him how much she remembered from their talk a few minutes ago. “They eat trees and leafs and sometimes they eat flowers, but that can be dangerous, and they have really, really long tongues so they can eat leafs on the tree.”

“Flora, that’s perfect!” Tony praised and held his hand up at her height for an easy high-five. “You’re absolutely right. And what do you think the weather is like in Africa?”

A most of the six kids in his group guessed variations of “hot!” and “sunny!”, and Tony told them all they were correct. 

“And what happens to you when you’re in the sun too long?”

Flora frowned a little, and said, “My daddy says I can’t play outside anymore because of sun rays and they’re dangerous.” 

“We burn, our skin burns,” Harvey chimed in. 

“Your dad’s right, Flora, the sun can be really brutal, and like Harvey says, our skin burns. Giraffes have skin just like us, and they can burn, too. And because they are always sticking their tongues out to pick leaves off trees, the last four to five inches of their tongues have evolved over time to be dark purple so it doesn’t burn in the sun. Can you guess how long a giraffe’s whole tongue is?”

“This long!” Naser said excitedly as he held his hands as far apart as he could. 

Tony laughed and inched forward to adjust Naser’s estimation. “Oh wow, so close!” he said in praise, gently guiding Naser’s hands together until it was a little less than two feet apart. “About, that. Eighteen to twenty inches. But that’s not so long, right? When you think about how long their necks are?”

Sumeet, who had been attentively peering at the nearby giraffe being fed, turned to the group and asked, “Mr. Tony, do giraffes use their horns to fight?”

“You know, that’s a great question. They do, in a way. The male giraffes use them to fight each other to impress the females.”

“Do they use them to fight lions, too?” Harvey wanted to know, but Flora seemed upset by the thought. 

“But, their legs are so long. Can’t they run faster?”

“They’re not faster than cheetahs!” Harvey disagreed, and Tony gently squeezed Harvey's shoulder in a reminder to calm down. Harvey turned to him instead and asked, “Mr. Tony, isn’t it true that cheetahs are super fast?”

“Oh yeah, they’re super fast. Giraffes wouldn’t fight lions unless they had to, they would rather run,” Tony first assured Flora. “But you’re right, Harvey, cheetah’s are the fastest animals on the planet. There are a few birds that are faster, but I personally don’t really think that’s fair, because their bones are hollow and cheetah’s have solid bones.”

“Mr. Tony,” Naser said a little bashfully, tugging on his sleeve and pointing at a poster advertising that lions were only a few yards away. The poster showed the lion lazing in the sun in the middle of his pride. “Are they all like, the lion’s girlfriend?”

“I like that comparison, Naser. The lions are close, let’s go look at them,” Tony said after a few seconds of thought. The kids stuck to Tony like glue every time he talked about the animals or answered their questions, and Tony had quickly learned to use this to his advantage: they only moved from one exhibit to the next when there was a story to keep the kids’ attention. 

“They’re not like people, they don’t really have boyfriends and girlfriends,” he said to start, pacing himself so there’d be plenty to say the whole walk to the lion enclosure. “It’s more about being safe and healthy. The male lions protect the territory, and the females hunt.” 

“That’s it?” Flora wondered out loud, frowning a little in her concentration. 

“For lions, that’s what matters,” Tony said with a smile. “But what is important to any animal depends on many things. For lions, the males need to be strong, but that’s not true for all animals. Male birds, for example, have evolved to dance and sing, to build nests, and to have beautiful feathers, like the peacock. What they have in common is why they do it: they want to have babies, they all want to be dads.” 

Harvey was the only kid in Tony’s little group who looked skeptical. “They do all that just to be dads?”

“They really do. Being a dad is important,” Tony promised him, carefully side-stepping the contrasting roles expected of animal dads and human dads. “And if you think they’re trying hard, you wouldn’t believe what insects do. They are the best, they do the craziest stuff,” Tony added with a little grin that turned even Harvey’s skepticism to curiosity. 

One right after another, the kids’ faces lit up. If Mr. Tony thought something was crazy, they knew it had to be better than a snow day. 

“How crazy?” Sumeet was first to ask the question all of them were thinking. 

“Why don’t we start with honey bees…”

*** 

“Mr. Rogers! Mr. Rogers!”

A little collective of third-graders came charging around the corner and ran straight for their teacher, crowding around his legs and beaming with such excitement that they were fit to burst at the seams. 

“Mr. Rogers, bees have _canon penises!_ ” 

“Flatworms have _dueling_ penises!”

“Bed bugs have penis spears!”

“In my defense,” Tony said over his excitable group that clearly had learned more about penises than any other school group in the zoo that day, “the bees also have exploding testicles.”

Steve stared at Tony, wide-eyed. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. He wanted to know why he hadn’t insisted on combining his group with Tony’s so he could know what the hell dueling penises actually meant. 

He was going to get so many phone calls from parents tomorrow. 

“What!” Arlene cried from her spot at Steve’s side. She looked up at Tony with the pain of betrayal clear in her eyes, and Steve found he couldn’t blame her. “Really, Mr. Tony?”

Tony crouched down beside the little girl with tears gathering in her eyes, and while any mere mortal might have laughed at just how seriously she took talks about genitalia and reproduction, Tony just reached out to rub her shoulder gently. “I’ll tell you all about it during lunch, okay?” he promised. “You’ll have lots to teach your mom today, I promise.”

“But you already _told them_ ,” she sniffed and rubbed at her eyes, clearly hurt by being left out of something like this. 

“She’s just tired,” Steve told Tony quietly, gently patting Arlene’s back to try to comfort her before her sniffles turned to heartfelt crying. 

“You know what we didn’t talk about yet?” Tony said with an air of mystery that had Arlene quieting a little and peering at him through her tears. 

“What?” she mumbled with a little hiccup in her voice. 

“Ducks,” Tony stage-whispered, and while most kids were invested in snacktime and chasing each other around the playground in Peter and MJ’s care, Tony’s own group tip-toed a little closer around him to hear. “Did you know that most birds don’t actually have penises? Ducks are an exception. And the Lake Duck in Argentina, in South America, has one of the longest penises in the world.”

Arlene blinked her big, watery green eyes at him, and without saying anything, she slanted a look up at Steve. 

“It’s bigger than almost every human man’s penis,” Tony said before Arlene voiced the question she clearly wanted to ask (and mortified Mr. Rogers again), “ _and_ , it’s really funny looking, because it’s all coiled and bunched up, like a corkscrew telephone cord.”

“My mommy says all penises are funny looking,” Arlene informed Tony, matter-of-factly, clearly happy to be educating Mr. Tony about something again. Tony had to cover his mouth to keep from outright laughing. 

He cleared his throat, and really did his best to keep a straight face. “Well. She’s not wrong about that, kiddo.”

*** 

Steve was struggling to peel the wristbands of his gloves off with his teeth when his phone started vibrating in his gym bag. 

“Shut up,” he told it as the vibrations turned to loud ringing, taunting him while he dug his phone out from all the other crap in his bag.

It was Tony calling. In a rush, Steve swept his thumb over the screen to connect the call. 

“Tell me if I’m being paranoid here, but is there something going on between you and Arlene’s mom?”

Steve blinked at the beige locker room wall. He’d already had a long Saturday running errands and getting his life in order, and he had just spent forty minutes tearing up his shoulders. All he wanted to do was go home to indulge in a long, hot bath and an ice cold compress. 

“I’m just—just humor me here, okay?” Tony pleaded in undertone. Distantly, in the background of the call, Steve could make out loud voices and quiet music, and all at once Steve could picture Tony so clearly, worried and hiding away in the corner of some bar to make this call. 

“You’re not secretly Arlene’s dad or anything?”

Steve frowned and peered at his phone, but the least he could do was put Tony out of his misery. “Sweetheart, no. Much to my mother’s disappointment, I’m nobody’s dad,” he promised. “Her mom’s asked me out a couple times, and sometimes she can be a little aggressive about it, but that’s it. I don’t date anyone related to my students. Are you okay, Tony?” he asked afterwards, gentling his tone. 

“No—yes, no,” Tony hurried to say. “I’m fine, but one of my friends just got dumped and we’re out here and I thought I, I,” he trailed off into a miserable sound. “Ah, fuck, I didn’t think. I shouldn’t have asked, I—”

“Tony,” Steve raised his voice a little, trying to be heard over Tony’s spiraling self-doubt. “Tony, hey. Do you want to come over tonight?”

“You,” Tony whispered, clearly a little surprised. “We’re doing brunch tomorrow, you won’t… won’t you get ...you know. Get tired?”

“Tired of seeing you?” Steve guessed with an affectionate smile. “No, genius, I won’t get tired of seeing you. I’ll either be in the shower or on the couch when you get there, so just let yourself in, alright?”

Tony was silent on the other line for a short time. “Uh… sure. How?” 

“Oh. I guess you need a key to my place for that, huh?” Steve seemed to realize, as innocent as the day he was born. “Get your butt over here, Tony. I’ve got something that belongs to you.”

*** 

“You’re disgusting.”

Bucky’s voice woke Steve out of his happy little daydream, stealing him away from coveted, intimate memories of Tony in his bed earlier that morning. He looked up from his phone where he’d been scrolling absently through photos of Tony ‘trying’ (and failing) to make a pavlova the other week, as if sitting on the front steps of your building and staring at pictures of your boyfriend was a perfectly normal passtime. 

As the alcohol had faded from his system the night before, so had Tony’s insecurities about their relationship. This morning, brunch had been a laid back, unhurried affair, an opportunity to indulge. They had very quickly become the obnoxious couple who could enjoy each other’s quiet company as easily as they could fold into passionate arguments about the use of modern CGI and green screen, or the pros and cons of having a global food basket that gives some access to fresh strawberries every day of the year, while others can’t afford to eat local crops. 

“You look like Cupid hit you with a semi-automatic,” Bucky drawled. “But I guess it can’t be that serious, right? Cause you haven’t introduced him to anybody yet. I know, because I get to meet him first. Official best friend duty, I vet the new boyfriend.”

Steve could feel his neck and his face warming up. “Uh. About that,” he said as casually as he could, but Bucky was already narrowing his eyes at him. 

“What?” he asked, then, preemptively annoyed, he guessed, “you introduced him to Sam first, didn’t you? Damnit, Steve—”

“No! No, of course not. You'll meet him first,” Steve hurried to assure his somewhat territorial best friend, who at least cooled off a little with the promise that he was still safely at the top of the list. “But, it is serious. For me, anyway. I gave him a key to my place last night.”

This time, Bucky’s gruff look ebbed into a more genuine surprise. He took a seat on the steps next to Steve, and in clear contrast to the exaggerated front he’d put on seconds ago, he now spoke quietly and with care. “Steve, that's a big step. If this is another Sharon...”

“That is not fair, and you know it, Buck,” Steve said before Bucky had a chance to finish his thought. “She loves what she does, and her work matters. Not just to her, but to others.”

“Alright, fine. If you’re sure,” Bucky said eventually. They sat together in silence for a short time, but Bucky didn’t push, and Steve couldn’t seem to find the right words. Instead of letting it fester, Bucky pushed himself back to his feet and made an effort to change the subject. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. The game starts in an hour. Wanna go to Shield, or grab something and watch it at your place?”

“Oh, damn. We haven’t been to Shield in years,” Steve said with a smile, and when Bucky offered him a hand to help him up, Steve took it without question. 

They had spent the better part of their late teens at Shield, drinking root beer and catching whatever game was in season without their mothers chiding them for shouting at every bad call the ref made. 

They caught each other up on the more banal events in their lives as they made their way to their old favorite haunt. Bucky was barely surviving Natasha’s increasingly involved interrogations about what she was getting for her birthday, while Steve was still reeling from the unexpectedly complimentary phone calls he’d received from parents after the field trip. Apparently, a handful of his students were now glued to nature documentaries, and wouldn’t stop talking about everything they’d learned at the zoo. 

“How's Sarah been? She's gotta be relieved it's been going so well after all they went through. Hell, I still can’t believe how they found him,” Bucky mused while they walked side by side for the last two blocks, apropos of nothing. “Our moms are crazy, you know that, right? Who does that kind of recon—sure you’re predictable, but to stake out a whole museum hoping to find someone matching your type… that’s a lot of work.”

“I’m not _that_ predictable,” Steve huffed, even though they both knew it was a lie. “Anyone would find Tony attractive. He’s objectively handsome, and he’s kind, he’s intelligent, he’s thoughtful—”

“Doesn’t mean you don’t have a type. Like, look at that guy,” he said, elbowing Steve harder than necessary to point out a guy across the street. “You should be all over him. Dark hair, tight jeans, ass like—”

Steve stopped dead in his tracks. He’d recognize that body anywhere. Could the world really be so small? 

“Tony?”

“How should I know? Don’t stare, you’re being a creep,” Bucky snickered quietly and kept walking. There was no point waiting, Steve would catch up eventually. Sometimes he just needed a few seconds to recuperate. If you could count on anything these days, it would be gravity, and the way Steve reacted to a nice rear. 

“I mean, if Tony even resembles that guy, I can see why—”

“ _No_ ,” Steve growled as he lunged to catch up with his friend, dragging him to a halt so he could hide behind Bucky’s bulk. “Bucky, that’s him. That _is_ Tony.”

Bucky let himself be manhandled as Steve scrambled to hide behind him. “But didn’t you say he’d be in Harlem today?” he asked quietly, watching Tony turn a corner in their very own Brooklyn. 

As soon as Tony was out of sight, Steve let go of Bucky and stood up straight again. He cleared his throat. He could do this; he could be reasonable. There must be a reasonable explanation for all of this. They would laugh about this the next time they talked. 

“I’m sure something changed in his schedule,” Steve said much too casually. “Maybe—maybe whoever he was meeting with wanted to meet in Brooklyn instead? Maybe he’d made a mistake when he said Harlem; it happens,” he decided, nodding to himself. It did, people made mistakes every day. People changed their minds every day, too. 

He’d almost convinced himself when Bucky marched off. 

“I’m gonna check it out,” he announced before Steve had to ask. 

“Oh, thank god,” Steve sighed with a breath of grateful relief, only to immediately catch himself. “Oh, no. No, Steven, not good,” he mumbled to himself, but by the time he tried to stop Bucky, Bucky was nowhere to be seen. 

Steve pulled his phone out to text him a cease and desist when he noticed Bucky was already typing a message.

> **RECEIVED FROM BUCKY @ 17:51 >**  
>  He’s meeting a woman at Blue Ribbon

> **RECEIVED FROM BUCKY @ 17:51 >**  
>  Steve you should see this. She’s really. Hot. 

> **RECEIVED FROM BUCKY @ 17:52 >**  
>  Strawberry blonde, legs for days 

> **RECEIVED FROM BUCKY @ 17:52 >**  
>  Can’t see them anymore, they’ve been seated

Steve reminded himself that there was nothing inherently wrong about spending a Sunday afternoon having dinner at a high-end oyster bar with a beautiful woman. He reminded himself that Tony was under no obligation to tell him about every detail in his life.

Steve stared down at his phone. He had a vague idea of what he should do, and a very clear idea about what he shouldn’t do.

> **YOU SENT @ 17:52 >**  
>  DO NOT engage! Wait for me 

***

“What are we even doing here, Buck? This is wrong, this is very, very wrong.” 

Bucky adjusted his sunglasses using his reflection in window inside TD Bank, much like he had another dozen times in the past twenty minutes. 

“If you don’t want to admit we’re doing it for you, tell yourself we’re doing it for me,” Bucky told him in a droll monotone. “Cause I know you, and if you don’t find out what happens when they come out of that restaurant, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Except I won’t have to wonder, because I will _ask him_ , like a sane human being who doesn’t stalk his boyfriend,” Steve whispered emphatically. “They’re there for dinner, Buck. It could take hours. We can’t loiter in a bank for two hours.”

“You’ve been saying you want to buy a car for years,” Bucky replied half-heartedly, absolutely unmoved by Steve’s rationale. “This is a bank. Figure it out.”

“How wou—I don’t have a fucking _license_.”

“Don’t be such a drama queen,” Bucky muttered while Steve continued his rambling disagreement with everything they were currently doing, not least of all missing the actual game, when Tony and his lady friend unexpectedly stepped out of the restaurant. 

“Well, that was quick,” Bucky observed quietly. Steve, on the other hand, flew to the window like a suicidal bird to see this beautiful woman with legs for days. 

“Oh, god,” he whined miserably as Tony and the woman smiled and laughed together. He was even helping her arrange her scarf just so, as if he needed an excuse to continue being near her. “She really is beautiful.”

“Told you.”

A car pulled up in front of them, and before taking her ride, the young woman hugged and kissed Tony goodbye. He watched her go with a fond smile. 

“I hate him,” Bucky decided, just as Steve’s phone rang. 

Across the street, Tony was walking away from the restaurant with his phone in his hand. 

“It’s him,” Steve said and held the ringing phone between them, as if he suddenly didn’t know what to do with it. “What do I say? He probably thinks I’m home, if I—”

“Let me talk to him,” Bucky said and took the phone out of Steve’s hand, but he had only managed to connect the call when Steve finally wrangled it back into his own possession. 

“Tony, hi!” he said with exuberant false cheer, as if Tony’s call was the biggest surprise of his lifetime. “What a, a great surprise. I thought you were busy tonight?”

“It ended earlier than I thought,” Tony said after a momentary pause. “It’s a bit of a long story, but I happen to be in Brooklyn, if, um. If you’re free?”

“If I’m free, that’s—”

“You’re not free,” Bucky hissed in undertone, but it must have been quiet enough in the bank that his voice carried. 

“Who’s that?” Tony wondered, and from the window, they could see him stop walking in the general direction of Steve’s apartment. “Is this a bad time?”

Steve glared at his friend and did his best to sound normal as he rushed to assure Tony he wasn’t intruding. “No, no it isn’t,” he promised in a rush, “it’s—we’re just, Bucky and I are at Shield, we’re watching the game. You want to come join us? I’d actually really like to introduce you, if, if you have the time.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes and grimaced in distaste, but at least he didn’t say another word. 

“If I’m not intruding,” Tony said, a small smile audible in his voice. “Yeah, I’d like that. Send me the address.”

Steve ended the call with a happy ‘see you soon,’ and sent Tony a message with Shield’s address. 

“Buck,” Steve said then, quietly and as calmly as he could. “We gotta get there before he does.”

“I figured,” Bucky sighed, already peering out to see if Tony was out of sight. They weren’t far from Shield, maybe four blocks, but Tony was already taking the most direct route. That meant Steve and Bucky would have to book it to reach Shield first the long way around. 

“For the record, you suck.”

“Give him a chance to explain, Buck. You don’t have to love him,” Steve gently pointed out, “you just have to be nice.”

“He’s turned the corner,” Bucky told Steve grimly, as if the last thing he needed in his life was an eight-block sprint. Steve still tried to confirm they were out of sight when Bucky shoved the bank door open and shouted, 

“ _Run!_ ”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to [ishipallthings](http://ishipallthings.tumblr.com) for support & looking these drafts over, because mannnnn this could have been so much more involved and convoluted. But the story is done, we did it!! I hope y'all enjoy!

Mere minutes later, Steve and Bucky were sweating into their multiple layers of denim and flannel and leather. They were gulping down cold pints of beer and devouring half a plate of nachos between them in an effort to look like they’d been there half an hour already. Except Tony didn’t show up right on their heels as they’d expected. 

“Where is he?” Bucky complained through a mouthful of nachos. “It’s been twenty minutes.”

Steve ignored it, much like he had been ignoring Bucky’s criticism of Tony since they saw him with the red headed woman. Instead, he shrugged out of his jacket, ordered another beer, and turned his attention to the game. 

“Aren’t you worried?” Bucky eventually asked. “What if that woman changed her mind and swung back to pick him up?”

“Unless it’s a kidnapping situation, no, Bucky, I’m not worried,” Steve said in a tired voice. “And I’d appreciate it if you stopped accusing him of anything before you’ve met him.”

The door creaked open, and both of them looked up. Finally, it was Tony who came in. It took him a moment to spot Steve and Bucky at the bar, but when he did, his face warmed with a smile and he made his way to them easily. 

As soon as he reached them, Tony leaned into Steve’s space and softly whispered hello. “So, was it a good surprise?” he murmured playfully, and went willingly when Steve pulled him in for a slow, indulgent kiss.

When they parted, Steve smiled back at him with nothing reasonable to say; he might have mumbled something about how it was a good surprise, but he wasn’t sure, and nothing really mattered in that moment, except that Tony was there, smiling back at him, and they were happy. 

Then, all at once, Steve seemed to remember where he was, and who was with them. 

“Tony,” Steve said with a grin, gesturing to Bucky. “This is Bucky. We’ve been friends since… what was it, fifth grade?”

Bucky heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Since the dawn of man, when everyone _except Steve_ knew he was too small to pick fights with assholes.”

Tony grinned at the insinuation of a story and glanced at Steve in his amusement before turning back to Bucky and offering him his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said. “Steve talks about you often. Good things, usually.”

“Oh? Well, he’s barely mentioned you,” Bucky drawled, and Steve cut him a tired look immediately. 

“Here, sit,” Steve said before Tony had to respond to Bucky’s transparent jab. He shifted from one stool to the next, letting Tony take a seat between himself and Bucky. “Drink?”

“Any stout’s good.” 

While Steve turned to get the bartender’s attention, Tony placed a blue gift bag on the counter in front of Bucky. 

“Steve mentioned that your wife’s birthday was coming up, and that she likes scented candles,” he said casually. 

Too casually, to Steve’s ears. He watched through the mirror behind the counter as Bucky frowned at the new development, though he clearly couldn’t resist. He peered into the bag, and took a judicious sniff of the gift-wrapped candle. 

He didn’t say a word. Steve watched as Tony, in his nervous way, filled the void. 

“They’re made here in Brooklyn,” he explained when Bucky had been silent for a little too long. “You don’t—if you don’t think she’ll like it, you don’t have to, you know—don’t feel obligated, it’s okay—”

Bucky glanced at Tony, and then at Steve, who was definitely _never_ letting Bucky forget about this, ever. 

“Stop. Just, stop,” Bucky said with a quiet sigh before Tony’s ramble really put him to shame. “Thank you, Tony. That’s… nice of you. It smells nice, too.” 

Steve watched them both with a smile for a beat, relieved to see the tension ease in Tony’s posture, and his friend taken down a peg when he needed it most. He didn’t comment on the present, but he reached for Tony’s hip on the impulse of wanting to be closer to Tony in that moment. 

Steve’s touch was so light that it took Tony a moment to recognize it, but when he did, he reciprocated by resting his hand on Steve’s knee. 

“So what happened that you’re free today?” Steve asked, changing the topic before the silence became awkward. 

“My friend from work, Pepper—your mom met her, actually—”

“Our moms,” Steve said with a grin, gesturing at Bucky with his beer. “Aunt Jackie is Bucky’s mom.”

Tony tried not to outright laugh when he took another look at Bucky. “They’re really something else, you know that, right?”

Bucky gave him a long-suffering look that spoke of a lifetime shaped by a meddling mother. “You think you’re telling us something we don't know?”

Tony huffed in quiet amusement, but turned back to answer Steve. “The plan was to meet Pepper and a few people from work about a conference we’re part of hosting next month, but she got a call on Friday about a job in LA, so we rescheduled. I used to work in LA, and she had questions.”

“Oh,” Steve said in understanding, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. 

It was a quiet _oh_ ; a loaded _oh_. Steve hid behind his beer before Tony noticed. 

Somehow, the realization that Tony might have job opportunities outside of the city rattled him more than Bucky’s earlier allegations ever could have. It had simply never occurred to him before. Tony wasn’t the kind of man to cheat on him, Steve had no doubt, but much like his ex, Tony _was_ a man whose work mattered to him. 

“You’re not doing anything like that, are you?” Bucky asked outright. Steve’s eyes grew to the size of saucers, and his heart leapt with sudden gusto. In that moment, he could have climbed on top of the counter to declare to the whole world that this man was his best friend; _this man_ had his back when it damn well counted. 

Unaware of any of Steve’s inner turmoil, Tony only blinked at Bucky in confusion. “Anything like what?”

“Move away,” Bucky clarified impatiently. “Go to LA, Chicago; I don’t know, wherever else you can do whatever it is you do.”

“Paleontology?” Tony asked rhetorically, then shook his head. “I’m not looking, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m not interested in moving. Nothing beats this city.”

The tension in Steve’s posture faded so quickly he nearly melted off his seat, and before Tony noticed the enormous, goofy grin of relief on his face, he hid his expression again by polishing off the last half of his beer. 

“So how come you know so much about penises?”

Steve sprayed his mouthful of beer across the counter and very nearly caught the bartender. Tony erupted in fits of wheezing laughter and only managed to stay on his stool with Bucky’s help. Steve thought he caught them fist-bumping on the sly, but it was hard to see anything past the rush of embarrassment over his awful mess—he dabbed furiously at the model lake he’d just single-handedly made out of beer, until the bartender who’d been clear of it all by mere inches took mercy on him and mopped it all up. With a warning to take it more slowly, Steve was served another pint. 

“I’ve never seen someone turn that shade of red before in my life!” Tony gasped between breathless giggling, wiping tears from his eyes. “My god, that was good, that—that was gold, Jesus.”

“It’s a serious question,” Bucky reminded them both with his perfect poker face. 

If he hadn’t known Bucky like he did, Steve might have believed him. 

“That was _not_ a serious question—”

But Tony disagreed. “No, he’s right, it is a serious question,” he said, then he turned to answer Bucky. “Doing anything about dinosaurs is guesswork, which is a lazy way of saying ‘developing theories based on observations of animals in similar environments.’ Penises are surprisingly important to the four F’s of evolution: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and making love.” 

That, of all things, took Bucky by surprise. He cracked a smile, and with a roll of his eyes, snickered to himself. Seeing his opening, Steve gently nudged Tony’s leg with his own and asked the question he’d been dying to ask all week. “What was it you were saying about dueling penises on Tuesday?”

Tony laughed at the question, and he gave Steve a look so amused and so adoring that Steve realized Tony had probably been expecting the question all week. “Thought you’d never ask,” he whispered, then, in a less teasing tone of voice, he explained. “So, we’ve observed a number of animals penis fencing in the wild, but their implication is not always clear. Like, I don’t really know why whales penis fence, because it’s hard to observe them. Bonobos do it, but bonobos just use sex for everything, so that’s usually too ambiguous even with context,” Tony said with a little shrug, because really, sex for bonobos was like oxygen. 

“On Tuesday, I only told the kids about flatworms. All flatworms are hermaphrodites, all perfectly viable as both male and female. But they all want to be the male, because the female role includes staying with the offspring, which means the flatworm that acts as the male can move on and produce more offspring. So, they duel for that privilege using their penises as swords, and the one that loses its penis takes the female role.”

“Damn. That’s rough,” Steve said quietly, not sure what sounded worse - getting your dick chopped off, or an existence where you wanted to have children without ever seeing them.

Bucky, on the other hand, looked fascinated. “Do you know anything about people penises? How did we evolve?”

God damnit. What happened to Steve's best friend who had had his back two minutes ago? 

“Buck,” Steve said in a low, warning tone, and he eyed Bucky’s fresh pint and three empty glasses. How quickly had they downed their drinks? Tony was still smiling and cheerful, but there wasn’t a doubt in Steve’s mind that Tony wanted to make a good impression—hell, he’d gone out of his way to get Natasha a birthday present. The last thing Tony needed right now was Steve’s beer-happy friend prodding him with awkward, immature questions. 

“It depends on what stage of evolution you’re talking about,” Tony was saying before Steve could find a way to get Bucky’s attention. 

“As primates, our closest relatives are chimpanzees, then the gorilla. All of us found different ways to deal with sperm competition, which is a male’s race to make sure he produces as many offspring as possible. The gorilla did it by physically becoming strong: they fight for control of a small troop of females. Because their genitalia has nothing to do with their chances of reproduction, they have one of the smallest penis-to-body ratios of any animal on the planet.” 

“That sucks,” Bucky observed, then with a solemn expression he looked across at Steve. “Sorry to hear that, Stevie.” 

“There’s a duck out there with a bigger dick than yours—”

“Right,” Bucky drawled, drier than dust. “Cause birds have dicks now.”

“Some of them do,” Tony chimed in before Steve had to say anything. “The duck hen is selective, so the drake gets creative. A little rapey. Not just fly-by rapey, but gang-rapey, too. I didn’t tell the kids that,” he quickly promised Steve. 

Steve was stunned. The comment came right out of left field, an arrangement of words that Steve never thought he would hear. He stared at Tony as if he’d told him Santa decorated his front porch with Rudolph’s hide. 

“Wait. Other animals commit rape, too?”

“Hang on, my question first,” Bucky insisted, and before Steve could get a word in edgewise, Bucky and Tony shared a look worth unpacking. Steve wanted to call a time-out and see what had just passed between those two, but Tony was speaking again before he got the chance. 

“Yes, right. So, primates. Chimps live in big groups with females and other males, like us, and like most promiscuous species, they evolved to have huge testicles, because the more sperm they produce, the greater their chances of producing offspring. Again, since the penis isn’t important in reproduction, it’s pretty small. For humans, though, the shape and length of the penis are most important. The shape scrapes out the sperm of previous males, but that’s only effective _if_ the length is right to create a seal. Too short, the penis can’t clear out the old sperm closest to target; too long, and you don’t get the sealing effect, so only a third or fourth of the old sperm is removed. And that,” he added, raising his glass to them both, “is the Cliff notes on the evolution of primate peen.”

“But, about the ducks,” Steve tried to ask again, but instead of acknowledging him, Bucky announced that he was hungry and nachos weren’t cutting it.

“Tony, you hungry?” Bucky asked Tony, pushing a menu at him. “You eat, right? Steve usually goes for the wings, but I’m telling you, get the shepherd’s pie. Natasha likes the pork belly pot stickers, if that’s something you go for...” he added, leaning in close to point it out on the menu. 

“Is there anything on here that isn’t an animal?” Tony wondered, turning the menu over to see if he’d missed anything.

“The lentil soup is good, and the fried pickle poppers,” Steve said and pointed them out on his own menu, but on Tony’s other side, Bucky grimaced.

“Wait. You’re not vegan, are you?”

“Nope,” Tony assured him without looking away from Steve’s recommendations. “I swallow.”

Steve hid his face in his hands and dissolved into giggles well before Bucky put two and two together and groaned in his disappointment. 

“Oh, fuck you,” he muttered through a grin once he got it. “You two shits deserve each other.”

 _Maybe_ , Steve dared to think when he peeked over his fingers and saw Tony laughing at Bucky’s exaggerated eye-rolling. 

Maybe Tony would be more than a romance; maybe there were other people in Steve’s life who would come to love his passion, his generosity, his kindness. 

Maybe the space Tony was filling was bigger than Steve had ever imagined. 

_Maybe this could work._

*** 

_Maybe he should never have introduced Tony to Bucky_ , Steve thought to himself while his best friend and his boyfriend continued their fiery argument that somehow had nothing to do with Steve or Steve’s opinions whatsoever. 

“I love Black Panther as much as the next guy,” Tony promised, “but it was _to the death_ , and T’Challa clearly died. By their law, Erik was the rightful king.”

Bucky almost tore at his hair in his frustration. “Except he fucking _was_ alive!”

“Because people were _keeping him alive,_ ” Tony insisted. “You heard M’Baku, if they took him out of the ice he would’ve died within minutes.”

“But his heart was still beating—”

“That is not the definition of life!” Tony cut in with such a sudden outburst that even the passing New Yorkers turned their heads. 

“And being on life support is not the definition of death!”

“I’m here, too, you know,” Steve groused to himself under his breath, making a point to step on a particularly crunch leaf on the pavement. The walk to the subway station wasn’t even that long, but being left out of the conversation sure had a way of making five blocks feel like an eternity. 

The relative silence that followed made Steve look up again. By the surprised looks on both his boyfriend and his best friend’s faces, it looked like they had heard him after all. 

“Maybe you can explain it better, babe,” Tony said, looping his arm around Steve’s and pulling him closer to literally draw him into their discussion. “Your adult, reasonably educated friend seems to be unclear on the difference between life and death.”

“T’Challa was clearly alive in that movie, right, Steve?”

“I’m convinced he was alive when he was alive,” Steve agreed after some quiet reflection. “But I’m not convinced he was alive the whole time.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” both Tony and Bucky said pointedly to each other before realizing what had happened. They frowned at each other and gave Steve a withering look. 

Tony let go of Steve’s arm. “You can’t agree with us both.”

 _Maybe_ Steve should have stayed out of this. 

“Fine,” Steve finally conceded with a sigh. If this was going to be a serious conversation, he could play along. “What’s your definition of death?” 

“The end of vital cellular activity and regeneration,” Tony said before Bucky could open his mouth. 

“Ha!” Bucky cheered and gave Tony a smack in the arm. “Then by your own damn definition he was never dead.”

“It was assisted life. If I take your hand and slap Steve, which one of us committed the assault?” 

“I don’t like where this is going,” Steve observed, to Bucky’s obvious disappointment. 

“I disagree, we’re clearly on to something,” he disagreed with a gleeful glint in his eyes. “I’m down for a demonstration—”

Tony looped his arm around Steve’s again and steered them away to put more space between them all. “Bad example,” Tony said with Steve in an apologetic tone, sliding his hand into Steve’s and tangling their fingers together. “What about something harmless. A strawberry. When is a strawberry dead?”

Bucky stared at him for a long minute. “I’m not drunk enough for this conversation.”

Steve blinked down at Tony and smiled in wonder, as if he couldn’t believe the simplicity of the question. Tony blinked up at him, clearly trying to puzzle out what Steve might be thinking. 

“You amaze me,” Steve whispered with a smile, answering Tony’s unspoken question. 

Tony scoffed quietly to himself, but he looked away before the color in his cheeks became too obvious. “How dare you,” he muttered under his breath, lifting their joined hands to kiss the back of Steve’s wrist. 

“It’s been four months, how’re you still so gross? Fuck you both.” Bucky groused loudly, and since they were at his stop, he trudged down the stairs while giving them both the finger. “Call me when you’re over the honeymoon phase bullshit!”

Steve felt Tony’s smile grow into a quiet laugh against his throat, and he shuddered at the tickle of Tony’s warm breath. 

“Your best friend, you said?” Tony teased Steve, pulling back to watch him with an adoring smile. “So delightful.”

Steve laughed and stole a kiss from Tony’s smiling lips while he had the chance. “There’s someone else who is delightful and wants to meet you,” he said then, still smiling at Tony because he just couldn’t stop. “I want to introduce you to my mom, Tony. It would mean a lot to me, and to her.”

Tony watched him with such easy contentment, as if Steve was everything on his mind in that shared heartbeat. 

“And to me,” he added with an adoring smile. “I can’t wait to get to know her. After all, she’s the reason I have you in my life.” 

*** 

The thing was, Steve loved it when Tony stayed the night. They’d either cook or go out for dinner, then collapse together in bed to just let the day roll off their backs. Sometimes it was as quiet and peaceful as reading their own books or magazines, but as their nights together became less of an exception and more of a norm, they started watching TV shows together, too. 

There was something quite soothing about ending your night draped across another human body, either shouting about dastardly bachelors, or lusting for _entremets_ , which neither of them had ever heard of before in their lives, but now clearly couldn’t live without. 

It was waking up in the morning with Tony in his bed that was the problem. 

Steve’s classes started at 8:15, and he liked to be there by 7:30 to get ready for the day. He liked going on a short run in the morning, he liked his lukewarm shower, and he liked getting dressed while enjoying the smell of brewing coffee filtering through his apartment. 

Tony, however, didn’t have to be at work until 9:30. 

The discrepancy in their schedules meant that when Steve sat up in bed on Monday morning to shut off his 5:30 alarm, the first thing he saw was Tony huddling further into the bedsheets. It wasn't even that Tony was particularly provocative in the morning; he was sluggish, he was difficult to wake, and he cocooned himself so fervently in the sheets that there was nothing visible left to tempt Steve but his wild bedhead.

But simply knowing that Tony was there, and hearing his soothing, even breaths made Steve want to snooze the morning away, and steal under the covers again to share a pillow with his boyfriend for endless hours. 

Steve had already lost count of how many mornings he’d slept in and missed his train, and subsequently gotten to his classroom with only fifteen minutes to spare. 

“Mom, I don’t know what to do,” he confided in her one afternoon while the kids were at recess. “What am I supposed to do? I care about him, but I can’t get the day started when he’s there. And my routine is good, it works.”

“It works for you,” his mom reminded him with the patience only mothers seemed to know. “Relationships are bigger than one person, you know that. You’re not trying to find someone to fit your life: you’re building a new life, together.”

Steve groaned quietly, and on a childish impulse, kicked at the floor. “I know, and he’s worth the compromises, it’s just… I want to ask him to move in with me, mom,” he whispered, swallowing back the nerves and anxiety and _tingling thrill_ that rose with that hope. “What if I can’t make it work? What if it’s the beginning of the end? If I can’t even wake up—”

“Steve, honey, slow down for a minute,” Sarah raised her voice to interrupt his unraveling line of thinking. “First of all, exercise is good for you, and his sleep is good for him. You will find a solution where you can do both. But honey, nobody is perfect, and nobody ever will be. You just have to find the right solution. Do you know how long it took me to train your father to eat a vegetable? He ate five things when I first met him: chicken, potatoes, milk, peanut butter, and sourdough bread.” 

A small smile tugged at the corner of Steve’s lips when his mom mentioned his dad. He could almost imagine the kitchen the way it looked when he was a child, when his mom would be on the phone with her friends for hours, and his dad would sit next to her at the kitchen table reading the paper, looking for all the world like he hadn’t heard a peep until he chimed in to fill in a forgotten name or detail in Sarah’s stories. 

“Do you understand how difficult it is to live with someone who won’t eat?” she asked rhetorically, a smile clear in her voice. 

“But dad ate everything,” Steve replied, sitting down on the edge of his desk before someone caught him pacing like a fool. “He made the best grilled cheese sandwiches. With the pears.”

Sarah laughed at the memory. “He really did, with the pears. But that took time; this always takes time.” 

“So,” Steve said eventually, frowning as he struggled to find the words. “How will I know where to start? I don’t mind compromising, I just—”

“Stop right there, Steve,” his mom interrupted him again, this time more firmly. “No more calling it a compromise, and stop using ‘I’. Compromise means giving up on something. Think of your relationship as a collaboration: you’re building something new together with your partner. So, no more ‘I’: you need to talk to him,” Sarah added more gently. “You’re my son, baby. I will always be here. But this is between you and him.”

Steve frowned at the thought. He pressed his lips together and held his breath, willing away the sudden and unwanted reminder of how one day he really would have to figure out his life without her. 

“I don’t… I really don’t know if I can do that, mom. I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he whispered unevenly, swallowing back against the lump in his throat. 

“Steven Grant Rogers, if you think I’m leaving you alone before I get to see and kiss my grandbabies, you got another thing coming,” she reminded him with the snap of a threat that shook Steve right out of his gloomy thoughts with a burst of surprised laughter. 

“You know, actually, Tony and I were talking about you yesterday,” he cleared his throat and took a quick breath, then tried again. “Tony’s schedule is pretty clear this week, and he— _we_ —were hoping this week would work for you, too. What do you think, mom?”

There was a brief pause on Sarah’s end, but it was so quiet Steve was half-sure she’d put him on mute. 

“Mom?” he asked the void. “You there?”

“How about tomorrow at 5:30, sweetheart?” she said, not wasting any time getting to the point. Steve made a quiet sound that wasn’t a no, and she took it as a confirmation immediately. “I’ll be making enchiladas, so skip the wine and bring the tequila.”

*** 

“Before you ask, I got the tequila,” Tony answered the phone with a big smile. “Coolest mom ever, by the way, I’ve never heard anyone ask for tequila.”

“Tony, I’ve got some bad news,” Steve said with a quiet sigh. “Naser’s aunt hasn’t come to pick him up, so I’m staying with him until she gets here.”

Tony frowned to himself and glanced at his watch. “It’s past 5pm, wasn’t school over hours ago?”

“He’s in the after school program, his parents can’t get him so his aunt is usually here, but it seems—I’m sure everything is fine,” Steve quickly decided, clearly avoiding any less than optimistic scenarios. “If you’re already in Brooklyn, you’re welcome to wait at my place, mom’s not far from there.” 

Tony couldn’t help but smile to himself. “Don’t worry about me, babe, just call me when you’re on your way.”

Tony hung up the phone and sat it down on table beside the porch swing. 

“Was that Steve calling?” 

“It was, Mrs. Rogers,” Tony said as he put his feet down to stop the swing for Sarah. The screen door connecting the kitchen to the back porch swung shut behind her while she shuffled out with a little bundle and, more importantly, a tray with two lime green margaritas the size of Tony’s face. 

She handed him a drink, then sat down in the swing with one for herself, and settled a big photo album in her lap. 

“First of all, it’s Sarah, or mom,” she reminded him gently, then with a big smile, she held up her glass for a toast. “And second: a toast to us, my dear, and all the best worst stories we can get through before Steve gets here.”

The porch screen was thrown open with a resounding clatter. “I thought you might!”

Sarah yelped and clutched the album, and Tony jolted upright with a sudden gasp. Lime green margarita sloshed across their laps, soaking the cover of the photo album Sarah had desperately tried to save. 

Steve howled with laughter, holding on to the door frame for support. 

“Steven Grant Rogers!” Sarah cried as she got over the worst of her fright, and immediately she started wiping at the photo album with her cardigan. “These are my all favorite pictures, if you’ve ruined any of them, I will put you over my knee so help me God—”

Steve was still laughing too hard to do anything but giggle and wheeze, but Tony took the album out of Sarah’s hand to hold it up at an angle that let the sloshed drink spill away without touching the pages. He unwrapped his scarf and wiped at what little booze remained on the cover, drying it off before handing it back to Sarah. 

“No trying to bond without me,” Steve told them with a smart grin, pushing the kitchen door open to beckon them in. “If you’re going to embarrass me, you have to do it to my face.”

“Famous last words,” Tony with an exaggerated sigh, but as Sarah got up with her half-full glass and her album safely tucked under her arm, mischief warmed in his eyes as he watched the Rogers go head to head. 

“And you think I won’t?” Sarah drawled, smiling up at Steve with the smug confidence of a woman who had already won. “What do you say, Tony?”

“Oh no, no,” Tony answered immediately, palms up already in a show of neutrality. “You’re not making me pick sides, not now, not ever. _But_ ,” he added with a sudden serious gravity, and he blinked his big, innocent eyes at Steve. “If I had to, my money’s on mom.”


End file.
